Arranging the Meal: A History of Table Service in France (California Studies in Food and Culture, 19) by Jean-Louis Flandrin


Arranging the Meal: A History of Table Service in France (California Studies in Food and Culture, 19)
Title : Arranging the Meal: A History of Table Service in France (California Studies in Food and Culture, 19)
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0520238850
ISBN-10 : 9780520238855
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 209
Publication : First published September 15, 2007

The sequence in which food has been served at meals has changed greatly over the centuries and has also varied from one country to another, a fact noted in virtually every culinary history. Most food writers have treated the more significant alterations as stand-alone events. The most famous example of such a change occurred in the nineteenth century, when service à la française ―in which the stunning presentation made a great show but diners had to wait to be served―gave way to service à la russe, in which platters were passed among diners who served themselves. But in Arranging the Meal, the late culinary historian Jean-Louis Flandrin argues that such a change in the order of food service is far from a distinct event. Instead he regards it as a historical phenomenon, one that happened in response to socioeconomic and cultural factors―another mutation in an ever-changing sequence of customs. As France's most illustrious culinary historian, Flandrin has become a cult figure in France, and this posthumous book is not only his final word but also a significant contribution to culinary scholarship. A foreword by Beatrice Fink places Flandrin's work in context and offers a personal remembrance of this French culinary hero.

Arranging the Meal: A History of Table Service in France (California Studies in Food and Culture, 19) Reviews

  • Trudy Ferrer

    Reanimation of this book while discussing with a friend whether to even have a salad course? Not that the formation of a meal will matter this year but it’s still a thing to ponder: beginning of meal or after or scratch all together? Anyway, the history of Russian service (this not at all vulgar) is always fascinating to me.

  • Julia

    Food historian Jean-Louis Flandrin may have been catholic in his culinary tastes, but his scholarship was single-minded: the proper ordering of dishes into courses in the classic French meal (with a glance at “English menu sequences” and “Polish Banquets”).

    The roast took pride of place at the dinner table. Grimod de La Reyniere, a Napoleonic gourmand, comparing the courses of a meal to the rooms of a house, pronounced the roast as “the front parlor, the best room, in short the one where the owner’s pride resides.”

    Soups were flagged more by function (served hot, at the jump-start of the meal) than by consistency (many, like the Italian risotto, were quite thick with rice or bread).

    Though meat ruled the French table, the Catholic fasting calendar inspired a strong counter-menu of vegetarian alternatives. Not only was meat forbidden on fast days, but so was lard and butter. Flandrin surmises that the “aversion to oil cookery” among norther Europeans may have fueled the Reformation.

    The most alluring category in the book is the entremets. Perhaps best translated as “side dish,” the entremets embraced a vast buffet of minor meat dishes (organs, aquatic life, and “large butcher cuts” unsuitable for roasting), plus eggs, vegetables, salads, fritters, pasties, and stews. Whereas the roast was supervised by the rotisserie master, and salads and desserts belonged to the pantry staff, the entremets were “true productions of the kitchen,” requiring the artful melding of ingredients, textures, and colors, and emphasizing skill in presentation over costliness of ingredients. (Rousing examples include fried cucumber pate, aspic of deer antler, or chard in fat).

    Tired of tapas? Perhaps an entremets extravaganza awaits us in the frugal wings of the recession’s new year.